


Cut Him Out In Little Stars

by lafiametta



Category: Still Star-Crossed (TV)
Genre: Benvolio POV, Damiano POV, Drabble Collection, F/M, Mini-Fic Collection, Prompt Fic, Rosaline POV
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-07
Updated: 2017-07-23
Packaged: 2018-11-29 03:51:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 9,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11432562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lafiametta/pseuds/lafiametta
Summary: A collection of Rosvolio drabbles/mini-fics based on one-word prompts submitted to me on Tumblr.





	1. Warm

**Author's Note:**

> This started off as a drabble collection, but as I am apparently incapable of limiting myself to 100 words, it's just become a collection of shorter fics (both canon-verse and AU). Enjoy!
> 
> (Also, if you like longer fic, I've written a few [Rosvolio ficlets](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11050488/chapters/) as well...)

Only once she reached home, safely within the walls of the Capulet palazzo, did she begin to tremble. A servant lit a fire in her chamber and brought her a cup of wine, but it was not enough to exorcise the plague of images in her head – the fiery explosion, the faces painted with blood, the man lying dead upon the cobblestones – not enough to expel the frozen terror in her veins.

Rosaline gazed down at her hands, pressed together to keep them from shaking. But his hand, she recalled, bound to hers for so brief a time – _his hand had been warm_.


	2. Wonder

“I do _wonder_ , my lady…”

Benvolio’s tone was droll, his tongue ready with a retort equal to the one she had had just offered him.

But before the words could emerge, she turned to face him, her brows arched in humor, her dark eyes shining brilliantly in the sunlight. It would not be difficult to lose oneself in their depths, he realized, in those endless pools of rich mahogany, and feel no particular desire for escape.

“You do wonder _what_ , signore?”

“I do wonder… ah…” He cleared his throat, glancing about in haste. “I wonder if the fine weather will keep…”

And then her eyes were full of laughter, undoubtedly directed at him, but he found he did not mind at all.


	3. Crystal

“Yet another wedding gift!” Livia exclaimed, pushing back the straw from the crate and pulling out two fine goblets of cut crystal. “Murano glass, from the look of it. The Grimaldis are clearly sparing no expense!”

She glanced over at Rosaline, her expression transforming from delight into one of concern.

“Do they not please you, sister?”

Rosaline could not fully answer, for certainly such objects were pleasing in themselves, as well-made and handsome as they were. But the presence of wedding gifts implied a wedding, and that she could not be pleased about, not yet.

But as she gazed at the glasses in Livia’s hands, she momentarily allowed herself to imagine them gracing the ends of a dining table while her new Montague husband paused their conversation to pour her more wine, his gray-green eyes sparkling in the candlelight.

And that – surprisingly – was a vision she found not entirely displeasing.


	4. Perfect

Rosaline gazed up in awe at the ceiling of the cathedral, marveling at the grandeur of it all, at the scope and proportion, at the miraculous inward curve of the dome as it strained towards the heavens. Stained glass filtered brilliant color down towards the marble floor, and at the altar, a magnificent bronze rendering of the Virgin and the infant Christ gazed beatifically down at the worshipers below.  

The building had only just been completed, and she could not help but feel a hint of pride at the thought that her family had been responsible for such a monument, that such beauty would live on long after all of them were gone.

“You found a new architect so quickly, then?” she asked her uncle. They had come – along with the prince and princess, her Montague betrothed, his uncle, and a large host of liveried servants – in order to inspect the cathedral before the wedding ceremony could be performed.

“I happily lent him one of mine,” Lord Montague quickly offered before her uncle could say a word. “Although credit for the altarpiece should be given to my nephew, who apparently has some talent with such things.”

Rosaline turned her head back in surprise, looking upon the bronze statue once more. The faces, the limbs, even the folds of the Virgin’s gown – all had been crafted so realistically, as if the figures could come to life at any moment. But it had been made by human hands, ones that she had clasped herself.

As if drawn by some external force, her gaze turned upon her betrothed, standing just beyond her in the nave. His eyes, she noted, were heavy with some ill-disguised emotion.

“It’s perfect,” she said quietly, and then glanced away before she might be overcome by any sentiments of her own. 


	5. Red

Somebody had answered his prayers.

It was already shaping up to be one hell of a party – ones at the Sigma Alpha house generally were – and now Benvolio had glimpsed a little vision of heaven, in the form of a very hot girl, wearing a very tight, bright red strapless minidress. He could only see her from behind, but he had no cause for complaint, not with her long legs that seemed to go on forever, her beautiful dark skin, and the teased cloud of hair that seemed to encircle her head like a halo.

She was standing near one of the kegs, looking like she needed a plastic cup, and – for the moment – all by herself.

Benvolio knew an opening when he saw one, and filled with the liquid courage already provided by several cups of beer, sidled up next to her.

“So where have you been all my life?” he yelled over the heavy bass of the stereo system.

She turned to face him and he realized with a sudden shock that he knew her, although he was more used to seeing her in jeans and t-shirts than the more revealing outfit she had on at the moment. Her dark eyes appraised him with equal parts amusement and disdain, as she clearly recognized him as well.

“Two rows over from you in Post-Colonial Literature,” she answered. “I guess you didn’t notice.”

It wasn’t that he hadn’t noticed her – he definitely had – but their interactions had centered more on the frequent disagreements they had during the class discussion, which always seemed to end with Benvolio being called to task for not fully recognizing the inherent struggle of whatever social, ethnic, or gender-based group she was defending that day.

“Look, why don’t I get you a beer,” he said with a grin, digging through the shelves behind the keg until he found a stack of clean red Solo cups, “and we can argue some more?”

And to his delight she laughed and smiled back.


	6. Breathless

It was the sound of shouting and the clash of steel that drew Rosaline from the corridor.

She had just come from a mid-day visit with the princess, who had been eager to discuss all the details of the upcoming wedding ceremony, so it seemed unlikely that the royal palace had come under attack. Yet Rosaline could not dismiss the possibility of such a threat and felt herself bound to investigate the disturbance.

What she saw as she inched open the doors to the wide salon was something she could not have anticipated.

Two men, clad only in their hose and shirts, were engaged in swordplay, clearly some sort of athletic practice, based on the sheen of sweat that marked their brows and the labored measure of their breathing. The prince, of course, she should not have been surprised to see, but it was the identity of his challenger that caused her eyes to widen in shock.

It was her Montague betrothed.

They thrust and parried with their rapiers, each man simultaneously focused on both the blade and the feet of his opponent, and for a moment it looked as if the prince would take the upper hand, until the Montague made a quick feint to the left, leaving the prince suddenly vulnerable along his right flank. The Montague quickly pivoted, his blade coming up alongside the side of the prince’s neck.

“ _Touch_ _é_ ,” said the prince, stilling as he lowered his own blade to the ground. “Although perhaps I should have known better than to invite the best swordsman of House Montague to my training hour.”

The Montague withdrew his blade and offered a short bow to his opponent.

“The honor is mine, your grace.”

“Come,” the prince said, nodding towards a servant who waited with cups of watered wine, “let us take some refreshment… and have a moment to catch our breath.”

Both men drank in lusty gulps and – perhaps owing to the warmth of the room – tugged upwards on their linen shirts until they had divested themselves of the garments entirely. Rosaline allowed herself a single glance at the expanse of lean, hardened muscle on display before she reminded herself that she was a maid, and such things were not fit for her eyes.

But that did not stop her from envisioning it once again when she was on the opposite side of the door, her own breath rough and unsteady as it drew past her lips.  


	7. Soft

“This is my favorite place, you know,” he murmured.

“What, my bed?” she asked, glancing down at him while still keeping an eye trained on her folded section of the Sunday _Times_.

The mid-morning sun was warm against his skin, and Benvolio felt pleasantly drowsed, like he was floating in the world’s calmest sea. He had woken up early and, not wanting to disturb her, had gone out for bagels and the paper, which he brought to her on a tray with a cup of hot coffee, made ridiculously strong just the way she liked it.

They had eaten in bed, sharing the paper – he let her start with the front page news while he settled in with Arts and Leisure, waiting for the moment when she would read aloud and mercilessly mock the Vows section – and then he had found himself wanting nothing more than to curl up like a cat and lay his body next to hers.

“No, not the bed,” he answered, his arms loosely wrapped around her hips. “I mean, the bed’s great – don’t get me wrong. But _this_ …” He shifted his weight, letting his head rest more firmly against the small rounded curve of her stomach. “I like this right here.”

Rosaline sighed, but he could hear the smile on her lips. “Your favorite place is my stomach?”

“It is,” he said, curling his arms more tightly around her for emphasis. “It’s so soft and squishy.”

“If that’s your idea of a compliment, Montague, you’re going to seriously want to think about upping your game.”

Benvolio gently shook his head, his cheek pressing along the hemmed edge of her tank top. “No, see, soft is nice,” he protested. “Soft is good.” He let his eyes drift closed, feeling the tiny contraction of her belly as she breathed. “Soft is like being home.”

She didn’t say anything, but then he felt the barest touch of her fingers as they brushed against the hair just above his ear, a gentle rhythm softly soothing him to sleep.


	8. Solitude

A month past her wedding day and Rosaline could not help but find married life to be somewhat different from what she had expected.

She had seen enough of it from her mother and her aunt to know the responsibility she was to bear – for both of them had always seemed to be so busy, directing servants and entertaining visitors, filling every hour with the management of a large household. Nor had they ever seemed to be alone, always accompanied by a retinue of liveried servants and chambermaids, who waited upon them from the moment they woke to the moment they pulled the bed curtains closed for sleep.

Rosaline’s days were busy, it was true, for setting up the business of a new house required diligence and the patience of a saint, yet she found there were always a few hours she could carve out for her own, when she might enjoy her own company for a time and briefly set aside her duty. A small room off her chamber well-stocked with a growing library easily served her purposes, although when the weather was fine she spent her time in the garden, for there was a stone bench where she could read in peace, regaled by the sound of sparrow-larks and the burble of a nearby fountain.

Today the sun shone brightly overhead, the blue of the sky unmarred by clouds, and so Rosaline sat in the garden, engrossed in her volume of Petrarch’s sonnets, until she heard the unexpected sound of footsteps along the path.

Rosaline glanced up and quickly recognized the form of her husband, looking as surprised to see her as she was to see him. In his left hand he carried a book, a little larger than her own, as well as a charcoal pencil, and for a moment she wondered what exactly had brought him to her refuge.

“My apologies, madam,” he said, stopping along the path. “I did not know you were here.” He offered her a small bow, as if he meant to depart. “I will leave you to your solitude.”

“Wait,” she cried out, before he could turn back towards the house.

She was not sure why she had said anything at all, for she had no reason for him to stay, only the realization that she had not seen much of him in the past month – and that, too, was unexpected. They sat together at meals, of course, and played host to their occasional guests, yet at night he sought his own chamber, having no need, apparently, for her company.

“Did you come here to read?” she asked.

He shook his head and glanced down somewhat bashfully at the book in his hand. “To draw.”

It was a sketchbook, she realized, more surprised than anything by this small revelation into her husband’s private life. And yet there remained the strangely overwhelming desire to know more.

“Do not leave for my sake,” she said, “for solitude can be shared, if the parties are of like minds… or so I have read.”

“As you say, my lady,” he said as he nodded, the shadow of a smile on his lips, and soon he had found a seat at the opposite side of the bench.

There had only been a moment to glimpse the contents of his book before he opened it to a new page – rough sketches of a Roman statue, the pointed arch of a church window, a pair of hands that bore a ring much like the one upon her own finger – and then she demurely turned her gaze, the soft scratching of his pencil the only sound she could hear as she descended once more into Petrarch.


	9. Tears

_“That my father was murdered...”_

The words cut through the air like the sharp of a blade, leaving nothing but a desolate silence in its wake.

It is only now - with their gazes locked - that Benvolio notices the silvery lines upon her cheeks, the path of tears that knew no other outlet for her long-held grief. In that moment he realizes that he has never seen her cry before - he has seen her fury and her fear, her sadness and her resignation - but never once has she allowed him a glimpse into something so tethered to her heart. 

_By who?_ he opens up his mouth to speak, but the question dies in his throat, for one look at her eyes and he knows -  _he knows_ \- with all the certainty of a man condemned to the gallows.

And now the full strength of it hits him, the utter cruelty of what was being forced upon her, of the men who would have her marry into the family responsible for such a crime. His own cruelty, as he blithely made sport with his friends over the death of Capulets, not for a moment considering who might have been left behind to grieve over them. 

She had resisted so firmly to their betrothal, an act he had attributed to simple maiden willfulness, but now he understands her reasons, powerful enough to put his own petty objections to shame.

_Because for all she knows_ , he realizes in horror, _he could have been the one that held the blade._


	10. Heart

Rosaline held back a yawn as she shifted on the hard wooden seat of the confessional. She could hardly be blamed; it was stifling and warm within and only a faint light emitted from under the door and through the bronze grille that masked the face of the priest opposite her.

She had already confessed to the most trifling of sins: a rare moment of indolence laying in bed even as she heard the early morning footsteps of the other servants; a stab of unvarnished anger as she watched her aunt slap a chambermaid across the face for singeing a lock of her hair with the iron; the petty theft of a pear tart, ripe with cinnamon and a fine dusting of sugar, stolen from under the nose of the cook, and shared with a complicit Livia as they licked their fingers clean in a tiny nook off the servants’ quarters.

There remained a far graver sin, a lie of omission more than anything else, but as Rosaline had not actually been questioned regarding the whereabouts of her cousin and herself the evening before, she felt little need to clear her conscience. And such a story would no doubt greatly shock her confessor – if she were even believed – for who could have imagined a marriage, even a clandestine one, between the enemy houses of Capulet and Montague?

“Have you nothing else to confess, child? For the Lord knows what is in your heart…”

She shook her head, ready to speak, when the memory came to her mind unbidden, like a thief out of a darkened corner. The way he had looked at her, appraised her – in a church, no less! – with such a dark and wolfish gleam within his gaze, it made her shiver even now. Rosaline was no blushing innocent – she had felt men’s hot eyes on her before – but this was different, unexpectedly so. She had offered the Montague cad nothing but disdainful glares, yet she had not been able to deny the flush of warmth that crept across her skin at that moment, nor the strangely pleasurable sensation of tightness as it curled and nestled in her lower belly.

“No, nothing, Father,” she finally stammered.

If the Lord knew what was in her heart, she could only pray that He looked no further than that.


	11. Stay

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little follow-up to ["Red"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11432562/chapters/25617507) ...

She waited until she thought he’d fallen asleep before she sat up and planted her feet on the floor, her eyes casting about the chaos of the clothes-strewn carpet for her bra and underwear.

The dress she had been wearing wasn’t hard to spot, as brightly colored as it was, laying in a hasty heap right next to the door where he had zipped it off of her less than an hour ago. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, remembering the soft hiccupped sound as he dragged the zipper down, the feeling of cool air and then the warmth of his hand as he slipped it inside the open back of her dress.

Rosaline hadn’t really intended to hook up with anyone tonight – much less one of the guys from the SAE house – but after a few beers the two them had gotten to talking about the class they had together and then about art and music and books and before she knew it he had said something ridiculously stupid about J. M. Coetzee and all she could think to do was take his face in her hands and kiss him.

After ten minutes of making out on one of the couches he had mentioned that he had a room upstairs. Maybe it was the beer or maybe it was the fact that he was a very good kisser – or both – but it had taken her all of half a second to grab him by the hand and pull him towards the staircase, both of them laughing and grinning at each other like idiots.

And now she was searching for her underwear, hoping to make an easy escape. Hookups were hookups – she understood how it went – and sometimes the best thing for all the people involved was to make a clean break of it, before anything got messy.

“Are you leaving?” a half-asleep voice murmured behind her.

She glanced back over her shoulder, taking in his rumpled form, partially covered by the flannel sheet. His hair was in adorable disarray, which she realized she was mostly responsible for.

“I didn’t think you SAE guys were much for cuddling afterwards,” she said, with an appraising tilt of her head.

He reached out, tracing his palm along the length of her back, and Rosaline suppressed a shiver.

“I think you should stay,” he said softly, but he didn’t meet her gaze.

“You do?”

“Well,” he said, the corner of his mouth curling up in an easy grin, “not to sound too full of myself here, but it’s hard to imagine staying here with me, in my bed, isn’t just a tiny bit preferable than having to go back to your own bed, where you’d be all by yourself.”

“It’s _that_ much better, you think?” She bit into her lip, a futile attempt to keep herself from smiling back.

He shrugged, his gray-green eyes glinting in the light, and then he curved his arm around her waist and playfully pulled her back down towards him, as her laughter filled the air of the room.

“Why don’t we find out?”


	12. Heaven-Sent

The whole thing wasn’t bad, as costume parties went – and Rosaline would know, having been roped into a number of terribly-chosen theme parties slapped together by her cousin at the last minute.

Still, the apartment was getting crowded, small groups and couples clustering in the kitchen and spilling into the hallways, voices and laughter edging over the sound of Drake as he played from the speakers in the living room. After a while, Rosaline ducked into the bathroom, hoping for a small moment of quiet. Before she left, though, she did a quick check of her costume in the mirror, adjusting the gold plastic halo so that it sat evenly over her head.

At least she had been able to scrounge up a half-way decent outfit, mostly by raiding Livia’s closet and then making a quick run to the thrift store down the street. Aside from the as-yet-to-be-determined favor she owed Livia for the use of her white skinny jeans, the whole thing had ended up costing her about fifteen bucks, which was probably the best she was going to do under the circumstances.

She stepped out of the bathroom, only to nearly collide with someone coming down the hallway, her hands coming up against the muscled planes of a t-shirt-clad chest, her gaze flashing up to find a wicked half-grin and a familiar set of gray-green eyes.

Rosaline backed up a little, nearly snorting when she saw what he had in his right hand: a mini pitchfork and an open can of Natty Light.

“Nice wings,” Benvolio said, his grin loosening into a smirk.

She nodded towards his head. “Nice horns.”

“There’s a tail, too,” he offered, turning halfway so she could see the thick red strip of fabric that trailed from his waist down towards the ground. “Don’t want you to miss the ensemble.” He paused, his gaze focusing on her again, direct in that way that always made her stomach flutter. “You know, Ros, in that outfit, you really are a walking magnet for bad pick-up lines.”

“Really?” she said, holding his gaze, determined to play the game as well as he was. “Try me.”

Rosaline wasn’t quite sure why she was doing this, as she knew quite well he didn’t mean anything at all by his insinuating banter. Benvolio Montague was arguably the biggest flirt in the tri-state area and every girl in their circle of friends knew not to take it personally – and never to get too irritated by him. It would be like getting angry at the sun for shining equally on everyone.

He pursed his lips, as if slightly surprised – or even impressed – before he edged slightly closer towards her. “Did it hurt,” he purred, “when you fell from heaven?”

She laughed a little, her cheeks warming with it, and he must have taken that as an invitation to try again.

“No?” he asked. “Well, am I dead? ‘Cause all I see is an angel standing right in front of me.”

Rosaline shook her head and folded her arms over her chest, even as her lips curled into a sly smile. It was hard not to keep staring – at his eyes, at the scruff along his jawline, at the pink fullness of his mouth.

He suddenly leaned in closer, his free hand reaching behind her neck until it found the tag along the inside collar of her shirt. She nearly gasped, first at his proximity, the aroma of aftershave and cheap beer invading her senses, and then at the trace of his fingertips along her bare skin.

“Sorry, just looking for the tag that says ‘heaven-sent’…” he murmured, his breath warm against her cheek.

Rosaline stood frozen, unsure of what to do, but for a second she let her eyes drift closed and breathed in slowly, allowing herself to pretend – just for that fleeting moment – that it was real.


	13. Labor

The sound of it had been almost more than Benvolio could bear.

For hours her sharp cries had echoed through the corridors of the house, only to be followed every so often by the more terrible gasps of silence. He sat, his fingernails carving half-moons into the arms of the chairs, and he paced, his tread wearing a path along the terracotta floor, and he stared out the window, his eyes focused on the brick rooftops of the city even though his mind was somewhere else entirely.

Her pains had begun right after breakfast, her hand reaching to the base of her belly just as she stood up from the table. He had been confused at first, thinking that the meal had disagreed with her somehow, but then she had gasped, her face sharply contorted, and she had told him that it was time to send for the physician. Benvolio sent for the physician, and he sent for the midwife, too – he would have sent for the Doge of Venice if he had believed it would have helped his beloved through the trials of her labor.

It was beyond all reason that he could not be with her himself, offering her what little comfort he could, but he knew he would have been chased from the room before he could even enter, an interloper in such ancient and mysterious rites.

The first star had appeared on the eastern horizon when he heard a different kind of cry, one thinner and higher-pitched, and then his heart had overflooded within his chest, knowing that he was hearing the voice of his child, that it lived and drew breath enough to wail lustily.

He waited – in agony and hope – for the physician to appear, and finally he did, crimson stains still caked under his fingernails.

“Congratulations, my lord,” he said without prelude. “You have a son.”

Benvolio had no idea how much coin was in the purse he handed over, nor did he care.

By the time he reached their chamber, all evidence that anything out of the ordinary had happened there had been entirely eradicated, and he was greeted by a single chambermaid and his wife, who lay in the middle of an immaculately made bed, her arms wrapped around a bundle she kept clutched to her breast. She looked as if she had gone through a battle – her hair was loose and tiredness was etched into her features – yet it had clearly ended in victory, and she the collector of the spoils.

“Your uncle will be happy,” she said, a wry smile on her lips. “For now there is an heir.”

“Are _you_ happy?” he asked, as he gingerly sat on the edge of the bed. He was a little afraid to touch her – he was afraid to do anything that might upset the delicate perfection of this moment. Everything lay before them – the future and all of its possibilities, both good and ill – and this, he now saw, was the point from which it would all begin.

“I am,” she murmured, her smile turning warm in the candlelight.

She reached out her arms and gently handed him the bundle, and Benvolio took it awkwardly, looking down for the first time at the face of his son, an impossibly tiny creature with tawny brown skin and a mop of dark curls. He was blessed with his mother’s wide eyes, though marked in hazel rather than mahogany. Benvolio had no words, no lines of poetry or godly hymns, nothing to give voice to what he felt. There was only joy, and the brush of sorrow, knowing that his long-buried friends would never have the chance to feel such all-consuming love.

“What will you call him?” she asked. “Another Benvolio? Or perhaps Damiano? That might drive your uncle to heights of unimaginable ecstasy, I fear.”

Benvolio glanced up at her, his gaze softly meeting her own. “Niccolo.”

Her face stilled, some unreadable emotion set loose behind her eyes.

“My father’s name?”

He nodded, watching as she pressed her lips together, her eyes bright with the threat of tears. Keeping his arms wrapped tightly around his son, Benvolio shifted so that he could sit right beside his wife, her body leaning tenderly against his. She reached out and took their child from him, and Benvolio curled his arms around them both, his own eyes soon nearly full to overflowing.

“Niccolo Montague,” she whispered, a tiny catch in her voice. “Welcome home.”


	14. Daydream

As he rises from the breakfast table, Damiano’s attention catches on an unfamiliar object, sitting inconspicuously next to the pewter flagon of wine.

It could only belong to his nephew, he realizes, the only other person to share the meal with him, and who has just vacated the adjacent seat.

He thinks for a moment to call Benvolio back – or at least call for a servant who might discover wherever his wastrel nephew has run off to and deliver it back into his keeping – but curiosity gets the better of him and he reaches over towards the object, taking it in hand for better inspection. It is a small book, not much larger than his palm, made with cheap paper and bound together roughly. Looking at it now, he realizes that has seen it before in his nephew’s possession, in moments of quiet solitude when Benvolio believed himself alone and unobserved.

Recalling such moments does little but irritate him further: in truth, there are times that Damiano can only curse his brother for leaving him with such a feckless youth, content to waste away his days drinking and whoring – at Damiano’s expense, no less – or else lounging about and daydreaming as he scribbles nonsense in his book.

He opens it, surprised for a moment to find not words but images, a host of rough sketches made in charcoal and red chalk, some solitary upon the page and some crowded together as if meant as studies for the same subject.

There are gentle landscapes and scenes of city life – a drover and his flock, a veiled matron at market – along with reconstructions of church façades and wide-spanning bridges, and various attempts at anatomical practice in the shape of an outstretched arm or a hand. As he continues to turn through the pages, the human figures become more and more frequent – and more familiar – until Damiano realizes he is looking at the eyes of his own son, eyes that he knows he will never see again in this life. On the facing page is Mercutio’s smile, recognizable even to a blind man. Another page, and there the two young men stand in partial profile, his son’s arm clasped around Mercutio’s shoulders.

It is all too much – he wants to close the book and pretend he never found it – and yet he cannot stop, for each image is so true to life that he half-expects them to transform into flesh and blood before his eyes.

As he makes his way towards the middle of the book, though, there are fewer sketches of Romeo and Mercutio, increasingly replaced by studies of a far more _feminine_ subject. Damiano swears roughly under his breath, for had he not made it perfectly clear to his nephew that he was no longer to frequent brothels or any such houses of ill-repute? But this face, too, becomes more familiar as he gazes upon its constituent parts: coiled ringlets of hair, a strong and square-cut chin, a direct and rather unmaidenly gaze borne out of a pair of wide, dark eyes. There are pages and pages of her, as if she somehow embodies a question his nephew cannot fully answer, and while Benvolio has offered no full and complete portrait, there is little doubt in Damiano’s mind who all these features belong to.

He chuckles quietly, remembering his nephew’s strident protestations about spending time with the Capulet girl, a sentiment decidedly at odds with the frequency of her image in his book. _Foolish boy_ , he thinks, a small smile of satisfaction curling onto his lips, _You really have no idea, do you?_


	15. Bed

Still half asleep, Benvolio reached out his arm into the space beside him, expecting to find the deliciously warm body of his wife, and finding only a shallow, Rosaline-shaped depression in the bed.

He groaned as he rolled onto his back, squeezing his eyes tight against the insistent brightness of the morning sun. Only after a moment of adjustment did he allow himself a squinted peek into the daylight and what he saw standing near the side of the bed was nearly enough to send him back under the covers.

She was awake and fully dressed, clad in a t-shirt, shorts, and leather sandals, her curls pulled back into a sensible ponytail. A pair of sunglasses sat atop her head, one hand clasped around the handle of her daypack, the bag made heavy, he guessed, by the weight of several guidebooks. From the exasperated look on her face, he assumed he had done something to cause it, and as Benvolio had learned with his wife, the best course of action was always to just let her speak first and say whatever was on her mind.

“Are you planning on staying in bed all day?” she asked, one eyebrow arched into a question mark.

He grinned and held his forearm over his eyes to shield them from the sunlight.

“Fair Rosaline, my dearest, my beloved, light of my life, fire of my heart: today is the first day of our honeymoon. I had factored in a few trips to the bathroom and a quick break to answer the door for room service, but,  _yes_ , I really was planning on us staying in bed  _all day_.”

“Benvolio, I did not take a nine-hour flight and a four-hour train ride so that we could lay around in bed,” she said, her free hand settling on her hip. “We are in Italy, one of the most beautiful places in the world, and I’m not going to miss it because of your misguided notions about what people do on their honeymoons!”

“Wait a second…” he teased, as he propped himself up on his elbows. “Does this count as our first married fight? If so, I think it’s going pretty well, don’t you?”

She tilted her head, breathtakingly beautiful even when visibly irritated.

“No, _darling_ , our first married fight was on the way to the airport, when you told the Uber driver to ignore Google Maps because you knew a ‘quote-unquote’ shortcut and we ended up nearly missing the flight.”

Benvolio sighed a little even as he nodded in agreement, and with a quick heave raised himself up and swiveled his legs so he could sit on the edge of the bed. He held out his hand for his wife to take, a clear admission of surrender.

“So what’s on the agenda for today, then?” he asked, as she slipped her hand into his.

She opened her mouth to speak, but before she could answer he pulled her towards him, his other arm quickly snaking around her waist so that he could drag her down onto his lap. She squealed – in apparent pleasure and surprise – and Benvolio found himself face-to-face with a particularly delectable expanse of bare skin, just above her collarbone, an opportunity he felt no need to squander.

“According to the Michelin guide, Verona has a particularly stunning… cath…e… _dral_ …” she stuttered, as his tongue danced circles along her dark skin. “Built in the late 16th century by some noble family…  _Jesus_ …”

He smiled in partial triumph even as he kept his lips pressed against her, migrating slowly up the curve of her shoulder until he reached a sensitive spot on her neck. One of his hands slid higher and higher along the smooth length of her thigh, stopping only when his fingertips found the hem of her shorts.

“The bed’s looking pretty good right now, isn’t it?” Benvolio murmured.

“I swear to god, Montague,” she said, stifling a breathy moan, and then her hands quickly clasped around his face, pulling his mouth to hers. She kissed him hungrily, her tongue brushing against the seam of his lips as her hand gripped tightly around his upper arm. “Okay… one hour,” she managed to get out. “One hour and then we go.”

“Marriage is all about compromise, Capulet,” he said as he turned and rolled her over and onto her back, the duvet billowing all around them like a heavenly cloud.


	16. Lark

With each passing moment the sky grew warmer as pale sunlight filtered past the eastern hills and into the valley below. A pair of larks called out to each other from the treetops, a morning song meant to usher in the new day.

Benvolio shifted and pulled his cloak a little closer, for while daybreak had done some to chase away the chill of night, the ground beneath him was still cold – and slightly damp, besides.

The two of them had ridden for most of the night, far enough that he only now felt slightly more at ease, having put a goodly distance between himself and the city. Another half a day’s ride and they would reach the abbey: there they would find the friar and get the answers that they both so desperately sought.

But as morning had come, he had realized that they needed time to rest before they could go any further, and so Benvolio had suggested that they stop and take refuge underneath the branches of a large oak tree. She had said nothing, only nodding in acquiescence, her Capulet pride no doubt keeping her from admitting that she, too, might be weary. Still, he noted with a wry grin, she had fallen asleep within moments of sitting and leaning back against the solid pillar of the tree trunk.

Even now, he did not fully understand why she had agreed to come with him, why she had trusted him at all. It was desperation that had led him to her window last night – that and the barest sliver of hope that she might look beyond his name and see him alone, a man in need of someone to at last believe in him. He had prepared himself for the possibility that she might refuse him, just as he had been repudiated by his house and his family, and betrayed by the one who had sworn her affections for him as she laid breathlessly in his arms. But the Capulet had not refused him, and for that he could feel only gratitude and a measure of astonishment – for who could have ever foreseen that it was in the house of his enemy that he would find his only friend?

Gazing at her sleeping form, he could not help but wonder what would become of her when this was all over. Would her uncle marry her off to yet another suitor, a man with coin enough in his coffers to erase the family debts? Would she return to a life of servitude or would she succeed in her plans to join a convent, content to pray under the eye of a watchful God? In truth, though, he found it difficult to see her donning the veil of a novice, for while Rosaline Capulet possessed many qualities, quiet and dutiful obedience was not necessarily among them.

And yet if Benvolio could imagine a future for her, it would not be as a servant to a boorish husband or to her uncle or even to God. As he sat, he was momentarily struck by a vision of her inside her family’s house, the one he had followed her to the day before – but in his mind it was transformed, reclaimed from sorrow and the ruination of the past. There she could be her own mistress, free to read from her own library and eat at her own table, her eyes reflecting the light of a hundred candles in their polished chandeliers. Stranger still, he somehow saw himself there with her, sitting across from her at the dining table, their glasses raised in some private gesture.

But that was folly – a future that would never be – and so he sighed and glanced away, turning his gaze towards the scrubby brush of the landscape beyond. As if sensing his disquiet, a rough fluttering of wings drew his attention upwards and he watched as the pair of larks took flight, their bodies soaring and finally disappearing into the bright haze of the morning sky. 


	17. Rape

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone at all concerned about where this story might be going… rest assured, I’m not that kind of author!

Another day, and another arranged public outing with his betrothed. 

Benvolio, of course, had little choice in the matter, attending only at the expressed instruction of his uncle. He supposed he should count himself lucky that his uncle had not thought to include another poorly-written sonnet in the invitation he had sent to the Capulet palazzo. 

There was to be no picnic this time, just a chaperoned walk through the palace gardens, but as the afternoon had turned exceedingly warm, he had suggested they move inside to the sculpture gallery, which occupied a long corridor along the east wing of the palace. Yet beyond just the weather, he had other reasons for making such a proposal: the gallery contained some of the finest works of art in northern Italy, both ancient and modern, and Benvolio never passed up an opportunity to see them. He had not been allowed to bring his sketchbook with him – for how, his uncle had lambasted him, could he play the attentive suitor with his eyes occupied elsewhere? – but he would do his best to commit a few of the figures to memory and then draw them later in the privacy of his chamber.

She was uncharacteristically quiet as they slowly made their way through the gallery, and even though they never seemed to be able to talk without quarreling, he found himself curious about her opinions on the pieces, whether she thought them as awe-inspiring as he did. For each one was a wonder: there stood a youthful Apollo, cradling a lyre; a Roman sarcophagus, detailed scenes of the Trojan War running along its sides; a graceful Saint Catherine cast in bronze, one hand atop her large spoked wheel.

They were almost to the middle of the gallery when she stopped, her eyes suddenly transfixed on the marble statue in front of her.

It towered over them, and would have even without the square pillar that it sat upon, for the three human figures that it depicted were larger than life, their bodies spanning marvelously up towards the heavens. There were two men – one crouched low upon the ground, the other standing – the latter with his arms clasped around the struggling body of a woman, her limbs outstretched in vain protest.

“ _The Rape of the Sabine Women_ ,” Benvolio said, taking a small step closer to where she stood. “Magnificent, isn’t it?”

She made no response, but only continued to stare upwards.

“Of course, it’s only a copy of Giambologna’s masterpiece,” he added. “One day I hope to go to Florence to see the original…” His voice trailed off, and as he cast about for something else to say, he wondered if her apparent fascination with the piece might be due to the possibility that she did not fully understand what she was looking at. “Do you know the story?” he asked.

She shook her head, her eyes quickly darting back to meet his gaze before they turned once more to the marble statue.

“The Sabines were a tribe that lived near Rome, just after it was founded. The Romans were mostly men, and as they were in need of wives, they announced a festival and invited all the Sabines, only to abduct their women in the middle of it.”

“They were taken by force?”

He paused a moment before finally answering. “Yes,” he admitted, for he knew not what else to say. It was only then he realized that her attention was focused almost entirely on the face of the woman – the Sabine woman – as she fought against her captor. Her marble lips were parted as if crying out, her eyes wide with panicked fear, and while Benvolio had seen the statue a number of times, admiring it for its technical mastery, he had never once really considered the unvarnished emotion displayed in the woman’s face – nor the idea that it depicted something entirely real, a horrifying act of subjugation and pain.

“Do you think they could have ever been happy,” she asked, “being forced into marriage with their enemies?”

He glanced back at his betrothed, only to find her wide, expansive gaze bearing directly on him, as if his answer was of some great import beyond just the question itself.

“I… I cannot say,” he said. “But… as the story goes, after several years the Sabines at last regrouped and attacked the Romans. Yet in the midst of battle, the Sabine women rushed onto the field, placing themselves between their fathers and their husbands, imploring them to stop fighting.”

Her eyes widened a little in surprise, and Benvolio felt the corner of his mouth tick up slightly with a conciliatory smile.

“They brought peace, and on that was built Rome. ‘Tis no small legacy,” he added with a shrug.

She nodded softly, her gaze turning down the length of the gallery and at the remaining statues that lined its walls. There was something in her dark eyes, though – a glimmer, a hint of understanding – that compelled Benvolio to raise his arm up for her to take. And while he knew it to be impossible, he couldn’t help imagine that she graced him with the tiniest of smiles as she linked her arm in his and began to walk side-by-side with him along the tiled corridor. 


	18. Secret

“We can’t ever tell anyone about this,” she said, her hand laying flat against the warmth of his chest, their legs still tangled up together underneath the sheets.

“Why not?” His morning voice was rougher than normal, low and gravelly in all the right ways – and Rosaline felt a shiver run across her skin.

“For about _a billion_ different reasons.”

“Name one.”

“Fine,” she huffed, even as a coy smile slowly spread across her lips. “One: maid of honor and best man hooking up after the wedding? Talk about a cliché…”

She was sure neither of them had intended for it to happen, at least not at the beginning. But then there was the champagne and the toasts and the music and the dancing – and the lightness in her heart as she gazed at Juliet and her new husband, clearly never more in love with each other than they were that night. Rosaline had felt dizzy with it, wonderfully dazed, and then he had asked her to dance, his hand like a whisper along her waist, his soft gaze catching hers as he pulled her in a little closer.

Benvolio was nothing more than a friend, until in that moment he wasn’t. He had obviously felt it too – that small sudden shift within her universe – for how else could she explain the multitude of shared glances that followed all night, the not-so-accidental brushes of skirts and legs and fingertips? And with every look, every touch, she had felt herself on edge, winding tighter and tighter, until she finally found the nerve to murmur in his ear that they might think about sharing a cab ride home. He had said nothing – the knowing raise of his eyebrows was enough – but in the darkened backseat of the cab he had pressed his hand to hers against the plush of the upholstery, silently interlacing their fingers. She didn’t bother giving the driver more than just her own address.

“Two: Juliet will go absolutely crazy. She thinks I’ve sworn off men.”

“Have you?”

“Clearly not,” she said with a little laugh, pressing her calf against his shin. “Three,” she continued, “our families hate each other.”

“No, they don’t…”

Rosaline turned onto her stomach, propping herself up with her arms against his chest. His eyes were heavy with sleep, his dark hair mussed and rumpled against the pillow, and it was all she could do not to run her hands through it.

“Did you miss the part before the ceremony when our uncles nearly got into a shouting match? Or during the reception when my cousin Tybalt threatened to run Mercutio through with the cake knife if he didn’t stop singing along with the band?”

“Sorry,” he said, grinning up at her. “I was a little distracted.”

“Four…” Rosaline said softly, her voice trailing off as she gazed down into his eyes, lost for a moment in that curious mixture of gray and green. She could feel the warm pull of her heartbeat, the blood in her veins quickening with each breath she took. She swallowed hard, hoping to displace it. “Haven’t you ever wanted something that was yours, like a secret that you didn’t have to share with anyone else, that belonged just to you?”

“Yeah,” he replied, and with a knowing smile reached up to tuck a curl of hair behind her ear. His touch was gentle, but it burned all the same.

She couldn’t begin to understand it, where this strange and overwhelming need for him had come from – still, none of that really mattered now, not as they lay together in her bed, dark skin flush against pale, not as Rosaline leaned down and pressed her lips to his, soon finding a hunger to match her own.


	19. Bathtub

It would be a waste of a perfectly good ducat, he had told her.

Besides, he added, it would likewise be a waste of the hot water, and a waste of the farm-wife’s labor, too, were neither of them to make any use of it. And so, with little warning or consideration for her modesty, he had pulled his leather jerkin back from his shoulders and began to strip himself of his clothes.

Rosaline had gasped and averted her eyes; she was a little ashamed at that – she, who had boldly demanded entrance to a brothel – but then it was hard to feel quite so bold when faced with the prospect of the Montague, of all people, baring himself right in front of her. She had waited until she heard the gentle splashing of water before she finally moved – pointedly ignoring the small groan of pleasure that must have come when he fully immersed himself – and found herself a place to sit and wait, her back to the tub.

It did not escape her attention that she was sitting on the room’s single bed.

Of course, being the Montague, he seemed to have no trouble idling away the goodly part of an hour, using the bath not as a chance to quickly and efficiently wash away the grime of the road, but as an opportunity to indulge in his characteristic pursuit of hedonism. The point at last came when she felt compelled to tell him as much – and while she was not surprised to hear him at first attempt to make excuses for himself, she was pleased to finally hear him begin to move, water jostling against the sides of the wooden tub.

Yet what Rosaline could not begin to explain at that moment was the strange and powerful compulsion that urged her to turn her gaze further and further into the center of the room, her heart pounding roughly somewhere in the vicinity of her throat, until he at last came into view. Some small part of her mind – whatever it was that remained of her maidenly virtue – cried out for her to stop, to look away, but it was impossible. Perhaps she had spent too much time at the bawdy house after all.

She should not have been entirely surprised by what she saw of him as he stood calf-deep in the water, drying himself off with a nearby cloth. Theoretically, she could have said exactly what parts she expected to see, parts that could easily be guessed at when they were covered by layers of clothing.

It was the reality of it that had her mouth dropping open, a sudden heat rushing to her cheeks.

He was well-formed – she had to give him that, at least – with trim muscle rippling across his shoulders and his back and down along the sturdy columns of his legs. His pale skin was smooth and unblemished, even with a light dusting of hair across the backs of his thighs, and she found herself wondering what it might feel like against her fingertips. From his narrow waist flared two muscled indentations that sat just above his hips, and from there curved back and down into perfectly rounded hemispheres–

Suddenly his lower half was covered by the cloth, and Rosaline knew her eyes could linger no more.

But even as she turned and faced the rough stone wall once again, she felt an unbidden smile blossoming on her lips, a tiny laugh – of wickedness or delight? or of something else entirely? – spilling into the settled quiet of the room.


	20. Lie

The stones of the cell are cold and hard against the bruises that mark his body. Benvolio curls himself tighter against the chill and watches as a rat scurries across the floor, intent on claiming whatever prize might be found in his untouched bowl of food. He can’t find the energy to be much bothered by it – and he has little appetite, regardless – and so he remains still and simply observes, surprised yet somehow not surprised to see that life – animal or otherwise – continues on, even as his own is rapidly coming to an end. 

He has made his peace with the possibility that it could come at any time; when they first brought him here – was it only yesterday? – he had flinched every time he heard a door creak against its hinge, thinking this was the moment they would drag him out to the jeering crowd and loop the noose around his neck. But with a day’s reflection, he has found himself growing ready to meet his Creator, for what is left for him in this life but more disappointment and loss?

There is comfort in the knowledge that when this is all over, he will be reunited with his friends once again – and while Benvolio doubts that many taverns and brothels can be found within the walls of Paradise, he cannot help but imagine that the three of them will be just as happy as they had been in life, before tragedy overtook them. His parents, too, will be there to greet him, and even though he has no memory of their faces, he can imagine them so easily, with outstretched arms and beatific smiles, softly murmuring to him that he is safe and loved, that here he might at last set aside all pain and fear. 

But as he lays on the floor of his cell, his mind will not be entirely still, for there is one thing that he cannot reconcile, one thing that he does not understand. He recalls her words, spoken – or so he believed – in rare moment of amity, all her promises to proclaim his innocence, his kindness, and even the worth of his friendship. And yet it was all a lie, for what else could it have been once she chose to substantiate the prince’s charges against him so thoroughly? He had thought, so foolishly, that there had been at least one person on his side –  _a good person_  – but he had nothing.

Perhaps it is even worse than nothing, for he had let himself hope, for one brief moment, that she was different, that he could trust her – that they might trust each other – and now the tiny ember that had burned within his heart is gone to ash and ruin.

 _Rosaline_ , he wants to cry out, yet he is as silent as he was when the gag was tied around his mouth.  _Why did you lie? Could you not have spoken the truth, and saved me, just as I tried to save you?_

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me on Tumblr (@lafiametta) about all things Still Star-Crossed!


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